I Petrograd, March 15.---I received a message from Tchicherin, informing me that a thousand American deportees had arrived in Libau and were to reach Russia on March 22. A committee was to be formed, and arrangements made for their reception. I had long ago suggested the necessity of a permanent organization for this purpose, because exiles were expected from different countries. So far nothing had been done, but now instructions from Moscow hastened matters. Mme. Ravitch, Commissar of Public Safety in the, Petrograd District, called a conference at which a Deportees' Commission was decided upon. I was appointed Chairman of the Reception Committee, and on March 19 we left Petrograd for the Lettish frontier. Sanitary Train No. 81, splendidly equipped, was placed at my disposal; two more trains were to follow in case the deportees' group proved larger than expected. In the dining-room, on the first day of our journey, a stranger introduced himself as "...
CHAPTER I DEPORTATION TO RUSSIA ON THE night of December 21, 1919, together with two hundred and forty-eight other political prisoners, I was deported from America. Although it was generally known we were to be deported, few really believed that the United States would so completely deny her past as an asylum for political refugees, some of whom had lived and worked in America for more than thirty years. In my own case, the decision to eliminate me first became known when, in 1909, the Federal authorities went out of their way to disfranchize the man whose name gave me citizenship. That Washington waited till 1917 was due to the circumstance that the psychologic moment for the finale was lacking. Perhaps I should have contested my case at that time. With the then-prevalent public opinion, the Courts would probably not have sustained the fraudulent proceedings which robbed me of citizenship. But it did not seem credible then that Ameri...
The Russian Revolution Series No.1 The RUSSIAN TRAGEDY (A Review and An Outlook) by Alexander Berkman FOREWORD We live at a time when two civilizations are struggling for their existence. Present society is at death grips with the New Ideal. The Russian Revolution was but the first serious combat of the two forces, whose struggle must continue till the final triumph of the one or of the other. The Russian Revolution has failed - failed of its ultimate purpose. But that failure is a temporary one. In the point of revolutionizing the thought and feeling of the masses of Russia and of the world, in undermining the fundamental concepts of existing society, and lighting the torch of faith and hope for the Better Day, the Russian Revolution has b... (From : Anarchy Archives.)